Performa Digital

Responding to the modes and means through which digital communication has transformed our expressions both online and in the world, Performa 15 inaugurates Performa Digital, an initiative that highlights and organizes projects that consider social media and the Internet as platforms for performance.

As a medium so marked by embodiment and physical movement, the mediation performance undergoes when translated through digital spaces raises important questions about the very nature of performance, our connections and detachments from one another, and what it means to be present.

For this first project, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera (@TaniaBruguera) performs across Instagram, engaging followers with the hashtag #instacitizen, and exploring the reinvigorated voice activism has found online in light of movements like the Arab Spring and #BlackLivesMatter.

Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera engages Instagram as a performative medium for Performa's first Digital Commission, implicating users as citizens of online spaces with the hashtag #instacitizen to explore how art and political change are activated by social media.